


a work in progress

by Cards_Slash



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Explicit Language, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 09:24:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9813128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: People always told the truth with a camera pointed at them.  People saw what they wanted to see in photographs; they wrote their own history into pictures.  But this was Altair's history, from the little girl (he'd once been) standing at Malik's elbow to the man (he was now) watching his daughter take her first steps.  It was dark, sometimes, and light sometimes, but it was still his: good, bad and ugly.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this deals with quite a few rather serious issues. read with caution.

(2004)

It started with the photographs:

Malik with his embarrassing boy-band haircut and his mouth pulled sideways in a slant. He was half-turned away from the flash of the camera, so the shell of his ear was more in focus than the tip of his nose. Behind him, the art teacher was holding the yellow disposable camera in one hand, mouth open and but her eyes were blurred as she looked away from the other students to look at the sudden flash of the camera. (And her voice, like a memory, as clear as anything saying ‘…you have a limited number of pictures so use them wisely.’ And the sigh that followed that first sudden flash.)

The rule of thirds photograph was a torrid, dead tree, split open down the center. The rotting sawdust insides of it was crawling with maggots. All the grass around it was yellow-and-brown, like the earth itself was just _dying_ but the sun was shining in the background. Any stranger looking at the photograph (and enough of them had, over the years) wouldn’t have been able to pick out the stupid big-headed boy in the distance. They couldn’t have any idea about the argument that was happening, the lighting was better on the other side of the tree, on the side where you couldn’t see it dying. The lighting was better and it made nobody uncomfortable. Strangers didn’t see Malik in the photograph, just a spot that looked like a boy in the distance, but he was there all the same, one hand on his thigh and his head shaking in disbelief.

He framed up his Mother in between the grid of the large bay window in the front of the house he grew up in. She was smiling, like she always did, with the fading light of day making her pretty white skin look golden. The color had faded (over the years) so the pink of her head scarf was washed out. Her eyes were dark, unflinching, and her teeth were white just between the part of her lips. 

The picture that flunked his photograph project was glossy-red fire consuming the shattered porcelain doll. The cracked pieces of the dolls face laying out around the sight of its murder. On the back of it, written in the corner, was the title “ _self portrait_ ”. (And echoing in the still-vibrant color of those flames, he had heard his art teacher’s quiet disapproval of his acting out and her static-disappointment.)

\--

(2006)

“I didn’t give that to you so you could record me—what are you doing?” was Malik’s voice cutting into the darkness of the very-first-video Altair ever took. He was in the library, using his _library voice_ , a steady undercut of noise that defied all expectation of being a hiss. They were sitting in the tables in the front, looking out at the gray sky as the rain drizzled like a slow-lazy piss. “At least take the lens cap off.”

“I thought I did.” 

And the camera was all out of focus with Malik’s hand pulling the cap off. His face caught in fond disapproval as he shook his head. At fourteen, Malik still looked like a little boy with boxy shoulders. There was an awkward constellation of pimples on the line of his jaw that he picked at when he read. “Are you just going to record me doing our project?” There was no smile on his face but his cocked up eyebrow waiting for an answer. 

“You gave it to me,” Altair said. 

The camera slid sideways, out toward the rain. In the glass of the window, like a ghost, was the mirror image of gawky girl with a royal blue head-scarf, face like a round blot in the center, holding a camera. The focus blurred out and came in again, settled on the books stacked in front of them. “You can keep it,” Malik said from just beyond view. And when the video spun, suddenly, he was sitting there looking straight at Altair without wavering. As solid as a brick wall, Malik didn’t even shrug in embarrassment as he said, “I’m never going to use it.”

“It’s your birthday present,” Altair said.

Malik’s face was blank-and-unreadable. He said, “I know.”

From somewhere over his shoulder, across the library, the woman that shelved the books was saying, “put that camera away immediately.” And the video went black and muffled as Altair-and-Malik’s hands fought over the off button and the lens cap. 

\--

(2000)

In the photograph, a class full of third graders were wearing hand-made puppy ears, smiling with brash carelessness into the camera. Altair was standing in the back row, sandwiched between a chubby boy and Malik with his recently-shaved head. It was the shortest his hair he’d had in his whole life, and he hated it so much his arms were crossed over his chest and he was scowling at the camera in front of them. The pointed tip of his Doberman-ears were sliding out of place because he haircut had come between making the ears and taking the picture. Altair must have been about to say something but there he was, wearing the dress his Mother made for him, head turned and long hair falling over his shoulder.

He'd said, (come on, Malik. Your mother won’t want you making that face.) And Malik had ground out through gritted teeth, (well I didn’t want my hair cut so I don’t care.) And there they were, forever immortalized mid-moment.

\--

(2008)

Puberty hit Malik like a train, and it showed even in the pictures. His jaw was filling out from that baby-soft roundness. There was purpose to his shoulders, a certain kind of fullness to his arms caught in the long-sleeve button-downs he wore to official school events. The flash of the camera was so bright it made the white sleeves of his shirt paper-thin and see-through so anyone could see the line where his undershirt stopped and his perfect-fucking skin started. There were a thousand things to like about the photograph:

The texture of the concrete in perfect detail,  
the stressed-out-curl of Malik’s hair pushed away from his face,  
the shadow of the other Mathletes just beyond the frame of the picture,  
the wide-open-look of shock:  
Malik’s tongue pink, his lips red from being bitten and the whites of his eyes as brilliant as eggshells.

Malik’s back was against the brick of the building (ruining that shirt forever with blanched pink stains) and his legs were bent at the knee, his shiny-dress shoes flat against the concrete. There was a litter of math books around his body like a rainbow and a curl of college-ruled papers in lap, rolled up and cinched in the center from being constantly caught in his fist. 

But the thing was, in that picture, the shock on Malik’s face was outrage in half-a-second. It was growing even then, in that split second that he’d caught on film. Malik’s hands had been worrying at his hair and the pimples at the edge of his face (pink as they were) but they were curling up to knobby knuckles. His eyebrows that had shot up in surprise were half-way down again in a fine rage. 

The lax edges of his mouth were going to move (just a half-a-breath later) into the most important words that Altair had heard in the whole of his life. 

It was sophomore year, and Malik was vying to be Valedictorian, caught up in anxiety about whether or not he could make it when there were smarter-boys (and girls) than him milling around in a clump not so far away. Altair was already sixteen and Malik was three months off still. And Altair had just said:

“My Father said if they can’t find someone decent to marry me here I’ll have to go back to Syria.”

And Malik’s shock was so complete, and so tangible that it had _scared_ him. But the picture was caught in that half moment between the realization of what the words were (a fine comparison between their worries, Malik always ranting about being the smartest and Altair just trying to make it through the day) and the flat denial of Malik’s still-changing voice.

“You’re not going anywhere,” was what Malik said. “Not anywhere but where you want to go.” And there was no picture for that moment, not photograph to show the exact moment all of Malik’s sometimes-plans became _permanent_. 

\--

(2009)

“Oh,” was Lamah (Malik’s mother) protesting the way the video opened on her walking just behind them, “do you bring that thing with you everywhere?” She was smiling even while she said it, lifting her hand to block the view of the camera the way someone might try to block out the sun. Her hands were long-tapered fingers and short-useful nails. Her palms were small and she must have realized that her efforts were doing nothing because she dropped her hand again. 

Kadar, at her side, was dragging his feet the way only thirteen year olds could manage. He just sighed at his Mother. “She brings that thing everywhere,” in a growl. “She probably showers with it.”

And Malik’s motion to the side was so swift, the scuff of his feet was an aggravated assault against the sidewalk. He came into the periphery of the camera view. “ _He_ ,” was as much as slapping Kadar across the face. 

“Malik,” was Altair always-behind-the camera. The video swayed outward, to look for anyone that might witness the stupid scene as it played out before them. And back again in time to see the brothers glaring at one another with naked hostility.

Lamah’s hand touched Kadar’s shoulder. “Malik,” she said. “We all agreed when we’re out in public we’d use feminine pronouns.” The words were so quiet and so reasonable. “We know,” and she looked at Altair, right at the camera. “We know how important it is to you. We know that you’re a man.” But she knew, as sure as anything, that safety was more important than gender. And it showed on her face, those little stress lines at the edge of her lips and the worry caught in her smile.

Kadar stared his brother straight in the face, he said, “that’s what _she_ wanted.” Every single syllable an invitation to a fight. 

Malik would have fought him too, with words or fists, but Altair caught Malik’s elbow and pulled him back. The motion was stilted, stubborn, and the video was catching nothing but sub-par film of the sidewalk and the long sway of Altair’s dress. (Modesty covering everything but the tips of her shoes.) “He’s an asshole,” Malik mumbled into the space between them.

“Come on,” was Altair always-changing-the-subject, “we only have an hour before I have to be home. I don’t want to fight.” When the video lifted up again, Malik was reluctant to move-on, still side-eying his brother. He gave, because he always did, and nodded his head as he started walking forward again. “So you said this was a local artist on exhibit?” Altair said.

“Yeah,” was Malik, trying to find a smile again, “mostly photography, some mixed-media things.”

\--

(2003)

Framed in his Mother’s house, was the photograph of Altair standing in front of the bay window. His fingers worrying together like intricate lace, a fidget smudging the focus of his pretty blue dress, and his face broken into pieces (rearranged into a smile). His hair was fully hidden in the folds of the headscarf (the hijab, his mother called it) that trapped him firmly in place. Missing from the photograph was the soft-wet-tears in his Mother’s eyes and the way she’d kissed his cheeks with _real_ joy.

Absent was his Father’s awkward acceptance of this turning point. The first moment that he’d looked at Altair as something _other_ , removed from the pleasant anonymity of young childhood. 

Absent was two hours later, when Altair was kicking chairs in third period, furious and deadly about the catcalls and the insults of his peers. Absent was the teacher that yelled at him, the principal that shook her head at him in the closed-space of her office and told him that he couldn’t act out on school property. 

His Mother kept that photograph framed in her house, like a memorial to a daughter that Altair had taken away from her.

\--

(2008)

“Are you filming this?” Malik asked. They were sitting in a public spot, at a park, with Lamah and Faheem opposite them. There were kids screaming in the background, and the slow wail of a swing that desperately needed oiling. “Why are you filming this?” was pure disbelief in sound, with no picture to accompany it. 

No, Altair didn’t need to see Malik’s face but the indecisive look on his parents’ faces. Faheem was dark skin and white clothes, looking worried about the presence of a camera. He stared at it without looking away but Lamah had her hand folded over her husband’s forearm as she looked at her son—at Altair—and she was saying, “we are only concerned because you are very young and what you are asking is permanent. This cannot be something that you just decide on a whim. You are asking us to openly deceive her parents about how we practice our faith.”

“Not deceive,” was important, “ _Embellish_. I want to marry her,” Malik said. His voice was unwavering, not even tripping over that pronoun at the end. “I always have. I just need your help to convince her parents that I’d make a good husband. I have a plan—I know what school I’d like to go to and what I’d like to be and I can convince them I’d make a good living, good enough to take care of her.”

“Son,” was Faheem, barely looking up from the camera. “We haven’t even spoken about what it is to care for a wife, to have a family—there are certain expectations that you cannot—”

“You can explain them all to me,” Malik said. “I won’t change my mind.”

Lamah looked at Altair then, something very much like sympathy in her face. “I know it must seem very frightening to you, to hear that they would send you back to a country you’ve never seen to be married by family you’ve never met. I cannot imagine,” was more of a concession than even Malik had ever made, “how that must feel to hear. But, you need to understand that what you’re asking us to do is a lot. We will do it if this is what you want, but trading one undesirable thing for another won’t make you happy.”

Altair had half-as-much conviction in the whole of his body as Malik did in a single finger on his hand. Still, he thought he made it sound _believable_ when he said, “I want to marry Malik. He’s a good match for me; he’s always been there for me. I cannot ask for more than that.” 

Faheem didn’t look convinced but Lamah was already nodding her head. “We’ll do anything we can,” she promised (right there, long before she knew what she was pledging herself to). Her hand patted Faheem’s arm as he looked at her with open confusion. The motion was so instinctive that she might not have realized that she did it and he might not even have realized how easily it soothed him. 

\--

(2010)

There was a framed photo on the wall by the diplomas, hanging askew on an unreliable old nail. It was Malik in his graduation gown with a smile spread across his face with such vicious victory that it was a wonder his last three-months of senior year weren’t pouring out of the frame in a constant litany of _angry slurs_ and long-late-nights spent studying. 

And another, in the same frame, side-by-side, was Altair in the shadow of a tree, with a breathless smile and no hijab under the graduation cap. All of his hair (still so very long then) was tucked up in a bun under the cap. The look on his face was nerves-and-worry and victory and defeat all in one. He was smiling with his hands like claws behind his back. It was the first (but not the last) picture he’d ever let Malik take of him. The first photograph he had of _him_ , out in the sunshine of the world.

\--

(2009)

“So,” was a confessional whisper. Malik was sitting with his back against the corner bookcase of the research section. The lighting was dim, barely enough to make out the bruise at the edge of his mouth or the bloody-red split in his lip. There was a puffiness to one of his eyes as he ducked his head nervously to the side to peer down the aisle. “What are we doing?”

“Video diaries,” Altair prompted. “I’m going to make a movie.”

Malik snorted. “Are you?”

“Malik,” was a girl’s voice. A girlfriend’s voice. 

“Fine,” Malik said. He pulled his legs up so they were crossed in front of him and he ran his hands down his thighs and rested them on his knobby knees beneath his navy-blue khakis. He swallowed and then looked straight at the camera. “Day one, I guess. We’re at the library with your Mother because we’re doing a joint science project. We’re supposed to be finding this book,” and he flashed the call number he’d scribbled on a scrap of paper at the camera. “I’m only here because my grades depend on it.” His tongue ran across his split lip.

“Why’d you get in a fight with your brother?” Altair asked.

Malik looked down at his hands clenched around his knees. His eyebrows were knotted up in the center, his eyes looking at the ratty carpet of the neighborhood library. It took him a minute, long enough that it seemed he would never answer the question. So when he looked up again, he said, “do you just want me to say it?”

“Yes,” Altair said.

“I got in a fight with him because he was disrespectful to you.” His hands slapped his thighs. “How hard is it to use the right pronouns? How hard is it to be a _decent human being_? I don’t care that he’s thirteen, and I don’t care that I’m ‘asking a lot of him, considering his age’. This is about more than being some—some—pubescent prick.” Every word made Malik’s face go pink. “He shouldn’t get to be that way to people.”

“Maybe he just needs time to adjust,” Altair said.

“I adjusted his face for him,” Malik said back (even and sure). But he must have seen something on Altair’s face (disapproval or disappointment or desperation, any or all of those things). “Look, I promised my Mother I wouldn’t do it again. I lost my temper and I shouldn’t have. It’s not your fault; you didn’t ask me to do it.”

“He’s your brother.”

Malik’s whole face didn’t even flinch at the word. “Yeah, I know, so he shouldn’t be such a shit.” But in the next second, there was the sharp sound of heels coming their way and Malik was up on his feet before Altair could hide the camera in the folds of her dress. Malik’s voice was hissing, “someone’s coming,” like it needed to be said.

\--

(2012)

The photo on his driver’s license was taken against a blank background. Learning to drive was four-years-later than anyone else he knew, almost an afterthought in the storm of so many other things. The woman at the counter and motioned him to a stool and looked at his clipped-short hair and his bound-flat chest without so much as a moment of interest. 

“Look here,” was the only warning he had before her finger pushed the button.

And his face was immortalized like that, eyes still shifting downward from looking at her, half-situated on the stool with a blank-flat-line to his lips. He looked like he was studying an empty sheet of paper in the photograph and there was no reason he should have kept that first driver’s license photograph like he did. 

\--

(2009)

Altair’s engagement to Malik was settled with a solemn dinner, shared between their families. Lamah was demure and quiet while Faheem and Father talked seriously about expectations and good matches. It had been two years in the making, that final moment, and there was no video to capture the pitch of his Father’s voice bargaining away the rest of his life. There was no video to show how Malik sat with the men like he belonged, swearing on a religion he barely even understood that he’d never falter in protecting Altair. 

There was only a photograph, of Malik and Altair and their fathers, standing in front of the stairs of his childhood home. They were separated just far enough there was no mistaking that they might have thought to touch one another. Altair was wearing a bland-blue dress and his Mother’s best pink hijab, staring at the camera the way he imagined a pig waiting to be slaughtered regarded his executioner. Malik was smiling, his picture-perfect student-club smile. Faheem was looking at his son, still unconvinced, and Altair’s father was smiling with perfect contentment at a job-well-done, securing his daughter a worthwhile marriage.

\--

(2011)

The camera angle put Malik’s face, with his cheek laying on the edge of their unmade bed, at the top of the frame. His bare shoulder was a great round knob against the side of his jaw as his fingers dug at the crumbs of sleep caught in the corner of his eye. “Why are you awake?” he mumbled.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Are you filming this?”

“Yes,” was so compulsive, not even Altair could say why he’d found the camera or why he’d turned it on or how he’d ended up sitting in the tiny space between the wall and the bed. He couldn’t tell why he’d found himself there, wearing nothing but his boxers and the tight undershirt that kept his chest flat. But he’d been sitting there for what felt like hours, in the dark, picking at the dense hair on his legs and trying to find a stop to the spiral of thoughts. 

Malik’s arm moved, he tugged at the cord to the lamp by the bed and squinted at the sudden sun bright light of the naked bulb. “What’s going on?” he asked before he got his eyes all the way open.

“We don’t have the money,” was Altair behind the camera. “Malik, we can’t do this we don’t have the money—you can’t just—we don’t even have sheets, we barely have enough money to eat and you keep saying that we’ll make it but you’re so stupid. You’re fucking stupid. You always have been—what the fuck are you even getting out of this?”

Malik didn’t sit up, but tip his head so he was looking at Altair more clearly. He glanced down, toward the bathroom and then at the floor and up at him. “How long have you been awake?”

“Malik,” Altair breathed.

But Malik was out of bed, kicking blankets off as he went. He was standing on the end of the mattress-and-box spring they’d dropped on the floor of the room. He was saying something indecipherable as he slammed into the doorjamb and slapped the light in the bathroom. The medicine cabinet opened and closed, there was a rattle of things hitting the sink and then a sudden explosion of magazines being thrown toward the door. The shower curtain shrieked across the ancient-rod and Malik was out again, standing there in nothing but his pajama pants looking _outraged_ at finding nothing. “Who the fuck cares about _money_?” was Malik screaming at him. 

But he couldn’t see the starving thinness of his ribs arching his skin out of shape. He couldn’t see because he couldn’t watch himself, stutter over words in books that had never taken him a second read-through to understand. He wasn’t sitting on the sidelines watching himself slowly drown under the _unnecessary weight_. 

“Maybe I don’t want to do this!” Altair screamed back at him.

“Maybe I don’t give a shit!” Malik shouted back, all red in the face. “Maybe I don’t want to have to count pills in bottles, and search through the cabinets and the fucking closets just to make sure you haven’t found a way to kill yourself! Maybe I _care_ , more than you do. Because _someone_ has to!”

“Fuck you,” Altair said, all slow-and-slithering.

Malik was all temper at four in the morning, with fists and fury. He was nothing but a raw nerve, starving in every conceivable way. Altair had done that to him, had taken away his family and his future and now his food, and he’d take him down (and down and down) until they were both in hell together. 

But Altair was _terrified_ at four in the morning, with his voice thick as honey, all hot and razor-sharp in his throat. He said, “I don’t want to die, I just don’t want to be here anymore.” And it was desperate.

Malik was shaking his head with his fists against his hips and for a minute it looked like he wouldn’t give. But he moved like he couldn’t control it, falling into the space next to Altair, too close for the camera to focus on him. His voice was clear, off screen, saying. “You’re going to see this psychiatrist, Altair. We’ll figure out the rest.”

The camera was on the floor, staring at the plucks and pulls in the ratty old box spring, and the edge of Malik’s foot. Altair couldn’t even cry right, caught on the edge of panic as he was, he thought he didn’t even mean to say, “you’ll never understand, you’ll never get it, you’ll never—”

Malik fell back against the bed, his face as red as tomatoes, shiny and damp from crying for Altair. He was _exhausted_ in every conceivable way. “No,” he said, like giving in, “I won’t.” His sniffle was followed but a scoff.

“You can’t help me,” Altair said.

It wasn’t even the first time Malik realized that because he wasn’t outraged and he wasn’t offended. He wasn’t shocked, just resigned. “Four AM,” he said (to the camera), “it’s a bad time at four AM.” He wiped his face with his whole hand and then pulled his legs in so they were crossed in front of him. His face was gaunt and dull-colored as the pink faded. His collarbone was sharper bones than it had ever been. “I may not understand,” he said, “but I do love you and I won’t give you up without a fight. If I can’t help you, I’ll find someone that can. But you can’t give up either.”

“I’m not worth this,” Altair said.

Malik was _furious_ again. “Well you’ve got clinical depression you haven’t been treating so you’re not exactly an impartial judge are you?” He said, “come on, get up, out of the corner. We’ll go for a walk.”

“You need to sleep,” Altair said.

“Come on,” Malik said instead, “just a little walk and we can both sleep.”

\--

(2008)

The pictures in the yearbook were black-and-white, so there was no telling what color Altair was wearing sitting next to Malik at the Model UN table. He was out of place:

a girl with her head modestly covered, next to a line of boys of different colors. All of them a different shade and a different haircut than the one before. And that girl was staring at the back of Malik’s head, scowling at him with tears in her eyes.

But there was another one, two pages later, of them at lunch. There was nobody at the table with them (a fact that had caused Altair to cut the page from his own yearbook before he showed it to his Mother) but a spread of brought-from-home lunch items taking up space between their hands and elbows. Altair was looking away from the camera but Malik was looking up at it, that seething-white-rage of his showing on every part of his face.

That was the look of betrayed privacy and Malik had campaigned against the use of the photograph at every level of the yearbook club’s hierarchy. He declared it was a worthless bit of fluff but the senior that headed the club had insisted it be printed under the basis that Malik-and-(Altair) were one of the best known couples in the whole school.

So the picture stayed, Malik’s fury and Altair’s turned head. It wasn’t that day, or even that week, but that month when Altair had told Malik he-was-a-man and Malik hadn’t worked through what those words meant for another week-or-so. 

Oh no, it hadn’t settled, because that white-hot-rage of Malik’s face was his indecision and his worry and his lingering doubts. He didn’t think Altair could see it because Malik had pledged immediate support, but it was there, in black-and-white, obvious to anyone that knew anything about the boy Malik had been.

\--

(2012)

“It’s New Year’s Eve,” Malik said to the camera. He was wearing a paper hat crooked on his head, sitting on a red lawn chair out on the balcony. There was a red cup of something forgettable in his hand and one of those obnoxious party noise makers in his other hand. He motioned over his shoulder inward toward the humble party that their roommates had thrown together, “the heteronormatives are trying to mate.” He snorted a giggle that made his face wrinkle in good humor. And then he motioned at the camera.

“Are you sober enough to hold onto this?” Altair asked.

“Since I’m drinking tea, I’d say yes.”

Altair’s voice was a snort, “tea from long island, maybe.” He did hand over the camera, in a rustle of noise and fingers folding over the lens. It took a second for Malik to right it and when he did, it was Altair, off-center, sitting in the blue chair that matched Malik’s. He was wearing his second-favorite hoodie with his fists folded into the pocket in the front. “Well, what are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to interrogate you,” Malik said. “You’re always asking me questions. It’s your turn.” He fiddled with the focus and moved his chair with sharp kicks of his feet until they were facing one another. “So, it’s New Years, what’s your resolution?”

Altair was making the best of his limited options at twenty. They had survived the year by the skin of their teeth, lucked into an internship that gave Malik enough money and opportunity to find them roommates that were tolerable and friendly. They’d found a balance between work-and-school, managing the mismatched passions of their efforts: Malik always moving forward in a desperate frenzy and Altair catching up with a turtle’s steady pace. “I want to start testosterone this year,” was the most selfish thing he’d ever said to anyone.

“Why?” Malik asked. It was an interviewer’s question-by-rote.

“I’d like to like my reflection a bit more,” Altair said. He wasn’t uneasy when he said it; looking back at Malik’s steady face. They’d talked about it _at length_ , comparing plans and rates and available doctors in the area. They’d made connections on social media and in person with groups that were full of support for couples like them. “What’s your resolution?”

Malik let out a low-long breath, “sleep,” he said and Altair smiled at him. Malik laughed, “I don’t know.”

“Sleep is a good goal,” Altair said to this stupid man who had married him just to save his life. “I don’t think you’ve slept in eight years.” The camera was on him, watching his face react to how Malik looked so old and sad in that moment, it was the flicker of recognition of the damage they’d done in Altair’s face. He sighed, “I love you,” because he never said it enough. He never said it like he meant it, but always just like that, like an apology or an olive branch. Like it was the least he could offer for the things that Malik had sacrificed for him.

“How do you want to look?” Malik asked him because he’d given up accepting Altair’s apologies. 

“I want stubble,” Altair said, “a square jaw.” 

But the countdown hit 0 and the screams of their roommates jerked the camera away from Altair’s face, toward the door to the balcony. The whole living room was a writhing mass of men-and-women, trying to find someone to kiss before the time ran out. Malik said, “happy new year, Altair,” as he turned the camera off.

\--

(2009)

There were two wedding albums, the one that Altair left at his Mother’s house: full of her daughter, the blushing bride caught on full-color photographs standing awkwardly at the side of her brand-new husband. They ate at folding tables on the lawn, smiling awkwardly at every friend and family member that stopped by to congratulate them.

And there was the photograph of his Mother with her arms around Altair’s body, squeezing her so tightly it seemed like she meant to break Altair in half. It was the only photograph Altair didn’t _have_ but wanted.

The other was set in a hair salon, with Malik looking lazy and anxious, sitting on a barber shop chair with his phone out. It was Kadar, finally grown into being a decent human being, leaning against the counter with another phone. The video footage of the event had been grainy and brief, captured in thirty-second spans. 

Lamah was in the mirror holding the camera that took the photos for their album. There was no telling by the lip-biting concentration on her face how she felt about the way the clippers cut away the magnificent length of Altair’s hair. There was no guessing how she felt about the steadfast and unflinching way Malik watched Altair knowing (better than any of them) what it meant to him.

It was the first moment, those photographs, that Malik even had the opportunity to see the man he’d married, and the first moment that Altair thought he might actually _make it_. That first breathless and fearsome grasp of freedom. Every photograph showed his face exactly the same, his unmoving head, staring right back at Malik. And underneath the black cape that covered his clothes (borrowed from his two-day husband’s dresser) he wore, but it didn’t hide his fists clutching the edges of the seat he was sitting on. 

The final photograph of the album was Altair standing next to Malik, wearing a white-button down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a pair of pants with the belt cinched tight. Malik’s arm was around his shoulders and Altair was smiling because he was _glorious_ in that second, as much like the man he’d been dreaming of being as he thought he would ever get (in that moment). Everything was possible in that moment, with his fresh-shaved head and his fist pulling Malik’s shirt off-center. 

\--

(2015)

“Hey.”

“I fucking hate you,” Malik mumbled at the dark. His inconstant movements ended with the lamp flicking on, the sudden light bleaching the video out white before it came back into focus. He had a pillow folded in half under his face and he was tipping his phone so he could see the clock face on the front of it. “Fucking four AM.”

Altair was sitting with his back against the wall, trying to get the focus right on Malik’s face and not the jumble of things they’d thrown, haphazardly, into their bedroom. The new apartment was tiny but it was all-theirs and the silence of it was keeping Altair awake at night. “You can go back to sleep in a minute,” Altair said. He liked the way his voice sounded then, how it had been reshaped by the testosterone. He liked almost everything about himself then, how his body had finally started to take shape, how his life had plateaued into something he didn’t feel like he was just tolerating. 

Malik hummed a disagreeable sound. “How long have you been up?” he asked because he _always_ asked.

“I was working on the movie,” Altair said, “and a few of the videos for work. Listen,” Altair said before Malik could ask him why he was working at three in the morning, why he hadn’t been able to sleep. “I think we should have a baby this year.”

Malik recoiled from that statement like he couldn’t even begin to understand what the hell Altair said. “What?” echoed the confused disgust caught on his face. And he was shoving himself up to sit on the edge of the bed with sleep wrinkles on his cheek. “You _just_ started—”

“This isn’t just about me,” Altair said before it could devolve into the argument (again), “we talked about this when we were in high school—and before you open your stupid mouth,” which Malik was, going to open his stupid mouth, “and tell me there are other ways, there aren’t. We don’t have enough money for adoption and even if we could get through the credit checks and the home visits, I wouldn’t pass the psych evals and you’re _gay_ and married to a transgender man. They wouldn’t give us a baby if we were the last people on the planet.”

“That’s dramatic,” Malik said. 

“It’s the truth.” Altair paused a moment to let Malik digest that, and when he seemed to have caught up with it, Altair said, “I’ve been thinking about this since you told me you wanted a child—two children, and I can’t promise you two because I’m not sure that I can make it through one. But, this is happening, Malik. I’m finally at a place where things are a possible reality. I can get top surgery, I could get a hysterectomy. I’m on testosterone. I feel _good_.”

“So why ruin it?” Malik asked.

“I want a baby,” Altair said. It was the first thing he might ever have said to Malik with any measure of _immovable_ firmness since he’d leaned across the aisle from him in eleventh grade and said, _I’m a man_ and spent the whole bus ride home explaining what he meant. There weren’t a lot of things Altair knew _for sure_ in his life but he knew that he was a man and he knew he wanted a baby. “I want our baby. I finished school, I have a job where I can stay home if I have to. You’ve got a great job, we’ve got insurance. There’s never going to be a better time.”

“We just got here,” Malik said to him. For the first time (ever) it was his voice and his face and his body caught up in indecision and fear. It was his hands gripping his thighs, and an absence of anger and certainty. This was _uncharted_ territory that Malik was staring at and there was no map to show him the way. “We just got good at this. I mean, six weeks ago is the first time I think you ever said _I love you_ and meant it. What happens if you—if _we_ do this and everything goes back?”

Altair was behind the camera (always) watching Malik’s resolve break down (at 4 AM, always fucking 4 AM), thinking he’d never understood what it must have felt like on the other side. Because Malik hadn’t ever faltered, he’d persisted as a pigheaded asshole most days of their (lives) marriage, always shoving and pushing and pulling to get his way. He’d given up his future, his chances, and, at times, his happiness just to sit opposite Altair working through his feelings of worthlessness. 

And they’d had fights like great battles, dealing glancing blows at one another until they were bloody and defeated and separate. Altair had been suffocated under the weight of knowing what he’d taken from Malik, and what he couldn’t give back. It had been their lives for so long it seemed like they’d never outrun it.

Altair had never seen it in reverse, seen how helpless Malik was against things he couldn’t change. He’d never seen him afraid (always angry). So he set the camera on the bedside table and he pulled Malik until he was on the floor with him. He sat in Malik’s lap with his fingers on his face. “We’ll always have setbacks,” he said. “But I want this. I want you to want this.”

Malik’s arms were easy loops around his back, his head was tipped to look at him. “We can’t go back,” he said. But even as scared as he was, he said, “I want a baby.”

Altair nodded and he kissed him, with both hands on his face. He thought he should have said (I love you) but he didn’t, because he’d been apologizing to Malik for _years_ using all the wrong words. “Soft yes or hard yes?” he asked (very close to Malik’s ear).

“Soft,” Malik said. But he let Altair kiss him, and touch him however he wanted, until it was Malik’s fingers and Altair’s fingers fighting over who turned the camera off first.

\--

(2012)

“So this is going to be a movie when you’re finished?” Lamah asked him. She was standing by the stove with her hand wrapped around the handle of a wooden spoon. Her hair had started to gray in little strings, starkly noticeable against the near-black of her hair. “How long have you been making these videos?”

“2008, I think,” Altair said. The kitchen was cavernous for sound quality, making him sound very far away when he was less than few feet from her. The dull echo of the TV on in the other room was the only indication they weren’t entirely alone. “I won’t use anything you don’t like, I’ll show you it when I’m finished.”

Lamah pursed her lips and looked at him (so very differently than her son did) like he’d gone off and missed the whole point again. “So you’ll ask me questions? Do I get to ask you questions?”

“If you want to,” Altair said. “Ok, so—when did Malik tell you about his plan to marry me?”

“He was eight,” Lamah said. “He told me that he wanted to marry you because you—is it okay to say? He said you were the best girl he knew.” She hesitated as she said it, prickly and unaware of how he’d feel about it.

“It’s ok.”

“So,” she said briskly, “he was eight and you were eight, and he decided that he would have to marry you because if he didn’t, one of the other boys might get you. It was funny,” and she smiled, “because he was so serious about it. I wish I had recorded it for you. If I had known he was serious I would have. He stood right about here,” she motioned to the stove, “and Faheem and I were sitting about where you are and he explained it to us about how he was just going to have to make sure you didn’t end up with someone that didn’t think you were the best because he really thought you were the best. And he didn’t think you’d make him get his head shaved, and that was the best kind of wife he could get.”

Altair laughed and Lamah laughed with him. “He hated that haircut,” was taking up space.

“Yes, he did,” Lamah agreed. “So, why Altair?”

The camera shook because Altair shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seemed right. My Mom,” and those words were hurried and unsure, “she, uh—she always like learning about the stars, and she had this big book of constellations? Like a coffee table book it had all the constellations and stories about why they were what they were and facts about the stars in them. Anyway, she liked Aquila the best.”

Lamah was nodding along, like it made all the sense in the world to her. “I saw her the other day,” she said (very softly), “your Mother. She looked good.”

Altair said nothing, but Lamah was looking at him over-and-over to make sure she hadn’t hurt him. It was softer concern than Malik had for him, and it hurt more. It took him a minute, or maybe more, before he said, “so when did you agree to help Malik with his crazy plan? And did it cause any problems with Faheem?”

“Ah,” Lamah said. “Well, I didn’t agree with Malik’s plan. I don’t think I agree with it still. I think it was dishonest to act in a way contrary to the truth. I think Faheem knew that I felt that way and the only problems that it caused us was that he couldn’t understand why I did it. I don’t think I even understood it because I was very angry at my son for a long time. Malik knew that, Kadar knew that. I think that’s why they fought so much. No,” she said, to herself, “I didn’t agree with Malik. I thought, I _thought_ that it would help you. I thought you were afraid of being married to someone you’d never met and then I found out about—that—Malik told me that you were trans, and I just thought you needed somewhere you could be safe. I didn’t think it was fair to you, but I thought, at worst, we could get you out of your parents’ house and we could make sure you were taken care if you decided you couldn’t be Malik’s—uh, spouse.” 

Altair set the camera on the table because Lamah was looking at him like she’d been scared-and-seventeen (once upon a time) staring down the reality of marrying some man her family agreed on. Like she’d been powerless and helpless and without options. Altair hugged her by the stove, with both of his arms around her body and her one arm folding around his back. She kissed his temple, just below the tips of his hair. For a brief span of breath, it seemed she would keep right on stirring her dinner but she let it go and her arms closed around him both at the same time. She crushed him in that hug. 

“Altair,” she said like it had been caught in her chest since she stood at the hair salon taking pictures with her teeth around her lip. “I’m so sorry. Don’t give up, okay?” she was saying into his hair.

He was pushing his face into her shoulder, saying nothing and letting her hug him because she’d seen his Mother a few days ago and he hadn’t seen his Mother in three years. Because Lamah was the only Mother he had left, when his slapped him across the face for killing her daughter. 

“Do it for yourself,” she whispered into his ear (in a way Malik never did, or simply couldn’t), “understand? You have to be selfish. You have to take care of yourself.”

\--

(2009)

It was the pair of them, Altair with his fresh-cut hair and Malik with giddy uncertainty, starting off a video with their hands woven together. 

“So here goes,” Altair said.

Malik was just nodding, already full of victory.

“We got married three days ago and we’re going to the same college and—” Altair was looking to the side, staring at nothing, trying to find words. 

“We’re going to get your name changed,” Malik said. 

Altair smiled at his husband, all brand new and uncertain, and nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed.

“I love you,” Malik said. It might have been (or might not have been) the first time he said it. It felt like the first time just then, scaring the hell out of Altair with the nearness of it. “We’ll make this work.” His fingers were tight around Altair’s as much as a threat as a promise.

\--

(2013)

One of the roommates had snapped a photograph, flash as bright as getting punched in the face, when they’d swung the door open to walk into the apartment. One of them, Maria, probably, had discovered it was Malik’s birthday. 

There was no way they could have known (as preoccupied by being supportive as they were) the way Altair’s marriage was turning to quicksand under his feet. They couldn’t have known they’d snap a photograph of the next-second after Malik had thrown his hands into the air and said,

“I don’t fucking care anymore, Altair,” like he’d finally (finally) _finally_ , had enough of everything.

They caught that second, the white-fury of Malik’s expression, the discontent anger on Altair’s (just behind him). But also the film of tears that were welling up in Malik’s face. They couldn’t have known they’d catch that moment, when Malik’s anger finally broke but they had captured it just the same, immortalized on digital film.

\--

(2015)

The photo of Malik with his stupid pro/con list was framed for the baby’s room. Altair had spent an hour and a half fiddling with the color saturation on the computer, slouching into the couch with the laptop resting against his knees. In the silence of the tiny living room, it had seemed like the most important moment of their lives to get right.

He balanced the color with the smile on Malik’s face: self-depreciating as it was. Malik was aware, just there, of how ridiculous it was that he’d spent a whole day making a list of good and bad reasons to have a child. And the list was lopsided at best, burdened with reasons it was a con and very few it was a pro. 

But it was the moment when Malik had given up the pursuit of logic, of the comfort of absolutely knowing for sure, and thrown his lot in with the dreamers because he had scribbled ‘because I want to be a father’ on the pro’s side and underlined it twice. That was his face, that expression like he was putting all his faith in Altair (for the first time, maybe, in all their lives). 

\--

(2011)

Kadar met him at a burger place and sat across from Altair eating his chicken sandwich with obnoxious authority. “So, this is going to be like a documentary?”

“I think so,” Altair said.

“Cool,” Kadar slurped his soda and set it down again. His fingers were bigger than Altair’s and it was unfair that this stupid _child_ four years younger than him was more of a man. (But he tried not to think about things that were unfair, because they had the habit of taking over.) “So what do you want to know?”

“That fight you had with Malik—”

“You mean that night he tried to kill me?” Kadar said. He huffed a laugh. “I don’t remember what I said to him. I just remember that he hit me like he wanted to kill me and he said he’d rather not have a brother than have me as one.” Kadar took another drink, rolled his sandwich paper up into a ball and then sat back in the seat. “I was just angry, you know? I didn’t—I don’t know how much of it even made it to you but it was never about you. I just wanted to make him angry.”

“Well you did,” Altair said.

“So, you’re a man in the wrong body, who cares? I mean,” and Kadar was shamefaced at saying that. “People care, but people care about a lot of stupid things. People just get comfortable with their ideas and they don’t want to change them. I don’t think I would have even cared or thought about gender or sex or whatever if you hadn’t been—you. I’m a man, you know. It’s what they told me all my life but it feels right. I don’t like my nose, but I’m not—I mean, I don’t feel like I’m wrong, I just don’t like my nose.” Every word he said seemed to realize he had no idea what he was saying. At the end he just fiddled with the balled up paper and watched it twitching on the table between his fingers. When he finally dragged his eyes upward to look at Altair, he said, “I’m sorry for how I behaved. How much ever of it you heard, and for all the things I hope you didn’t. It wasn’t about you but I used you against him and I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Altair said (just like he practiced), “how much of it did you even understand, about Malik’s plan and me and my parents?”

“Not a lot,” Kadar said. “I thought it was unreasonable that Malik was just going to get his way. After the fight, Mom yelled at him. I don’t think that she’d ever yelled at us before that, but she yelled at him and said if he couldn’t control his temper she wasn’t going to lie for him anymore. And then she yelled at me and she told me to stop being a stupid boy.” He shrugged that off. “It was the way she said it, like I was only stupid because I was a boy. I don’t know.” He looked up again. “How are you? I mean, like, really?”

“Getting better,” just like-he’d-practiced. 

\--

(2015)

“So,” was Altair sitting in his corner, at 4AM. Malik was already awake, yawning at his side with his rumpled sleep-shirt covering the pink pressure marks on his chest. They were brand-new-parents (or would be, in nine months) just making it through their first night coping with the news of their success. “I think I’m going to keep a photo journal of the pregnancy.”

“Mm,” Malik mumbled.

“Wake up,” Altair said.

“I hate four AM,” Malik mumbled with his head resting on Altair’s shoulder. But he peeled his eyes open, “why photos and not videos?”

“I don’t want our baby to ever think I didn’t want them,” Altair said. He looked at the camera, thinking about whatever child they might have in the future, rifling through their father’s things, finding the video where Altair was overcome with discomfort (or disgust, or something ugly and similar to the two) with the way his body looked and mistaking that-for-remorse that they had ever been born. “But I want to remember this, however it changes my body.”

Malik nodded. “You should record the good days; you always forget the good days.” 

Altair shook his shoulder because Malik was mumbling with his eyes closed. “Are you awake?”

“Four AM,” was Malik’s whine as he slid down to lay his head in Altair’s lap. He was a heap of a man lying on the floor between the bed and the wall, already three-fourths the way back to sleep. “I’m listening,” was his sole protest.

“You’re sleeping,” Altair said down to him. “At least be honest about it.”

“Shhhh,” Malik answered back. 

\--

(2009)

Altair sent his Mother a photograph of his first day of college, but he’d kept a copy of it. It had been a steamy August day, but he’d worn a hoodie over his T-shirt because they were novices at chest binding and even if Malik assured him that he looked sufficiently masculine, Altair couldn’t be convinced.

The hoodie covered his chest and his waist and his hips, it rendered him shapeless and it left people with nothing but his pretty-boy face and his short hair to gender him with. He was holding his breath in the picture, posed in front of one of the college signs, trying to be brave and smile (thinking, maybe she would see this picture, and she would forgive him). 

\--

(2013)

Altair had been recording the rain fall outside, thinking about nothing but taking a breath in and letting it out again, but Malik slammed the door of their bedroom when he got home from work. Altair’s thumb had meant to turn the camera off but he’d missed the button and it sat on the bed, staring at the ceiling, catching every furious word of their argument.

It was Altair, finally fed up with feeling like he _owed_ something, shouting, “well I didn’t ask to be your project, did I! I didn’t ask you to give up your life—and I told you! I told you! I told you that I didn’t want to be that. I said, don’t marry me if you don’t love me and you’ve spent the last _four_ years making sure I never forgot you gave up your life for me!”

“I’ve spent the past four years keeping you alive!” was Malik’s scream. It was just that, a scream—just like the horror movies, with the blonde heroine screaming into the shaky camera. They might as well been a bathroom, Altair stabbing Malik while he was naked. “And you don’t care,” followed it up, a gulp of noise. “You don’t care.”

Altair hit him, because it had been building up in him for a long-time-now. He hit Malik the way he’d thought about in idle seconds ever since Malik explained to him how he was going to save Altair. Ever since he was just a thing to be bartered and given away. He’d been day dreaming of hitting Malik in and out of seconds, every minute of their marriage and there was nothing as satisfying as watching the shock of being struck mutate his husband’s furious face. “No, you haven’t,” Altair said to him. His voice was inhuman, and it was cold. “ _I’ve_ spent four years keeping _myself_ alive.”

“Well, you did a shit job of it,” Malik snapped at him. “What the fuck do you even want from me, Altair? What do you want?” 

And there was no answer to that, the question that Malik shouted at him in their bedroom. It dragged on and on, the sound of the rain as loud as their breathing. The camera didn’t show Altair’s shaking-stiff-shoulders or Malik’s slow-crumbling resolve. It caught a fly that buzzed in through the open door and out again, but it didn’t see Malik shaking his head.

“I want you to say it,” Altair said just before Malik turned his back and left. At the very last second, when it was let-him-go and keep-him-there and he couldn’t separate his anger from his loneliness. “I want you to say that you got caught up in the plan, that you forgot you weren’t marrying a wife. I want you to tell me, to my _face_ that you’ve thought about how much easier your life would be without me. I want you to tell me that I could have made it without you, that I didn’t _survive_ because you’ve spent four years trying to bully me into what you want me to be.”

“Fuck,” Malik said, all wet and red. “Yeah,” was defeat, “I got caught up in the plan. Yeah, I forgot that you weren’t going to be my wife and that I didn’t even want you to be. And _yes_ , everything would be easier if I didn’t have _you_. I can’t count the number of men I could have had instead, I couldn’t even tell you the number of times I just wished it were _simple_ for once. I’m so fucking _tired_ of four AM and your freakouts and waiting for the floor to fall out from under us!” His hands hit his own thighs and for a minute, there was nothing but Malik’s face (red and wet) off camera. 

Altair could remember it, even when it didn’t show up on screen, because he’d stared down that face without remorse. He’d relished his cruelty in watching Malik crumble. 

“And maybe I want credit that’s not mine,” Malik said. “But _fuck_ , Altair. I just want to be able to believe that you love me, or that I’ve mattered to you at all. I don’t—”

“I do love you,” Altair said.

“No, you’re _sorry_ that I love you,” Malik snapped back. “You only ever say you love me when you think you’re being a burden—and you are, but that’s how it’s supposed to work. I’m supposed to be here for you and you’re supposed to be there for me. And I don’t know what it’s like for you but you’ve spent four years acting like my life is great! Your father said he was going to kill me. My Father didn’t talk to me for six weeks after I told them you were a man and I was going to marry you anyway. Fuck, _Altair_ , this hasn’t been candy and roses for me either.”

“My Father did what?” Altair asked.

“Oh yeah,” Malik said. “He said he was going to kill me. He said he was going to kill you and he was going to kill me and I don’t know—he looked like he meant it. I thought he was going to do it but it’s been a few years so—”

“Malik.” Altair cut into the start of another long-rant and Malik looked at him like he held all the power in the whole world. It was a helpless look, all pink and wounded. “I am grateful to you. You won’t ever understand what I’m dealing with but I can’t understand what you’ve been struggling with. I don’t want either of us to be here because we feel like we owe it. I want you to want to be here with me.”

“Yeah, well, you first.”

“I do want you,” Altair said. “But I want you on even ground.”

Malik sniffled and cleared his throat. “How do we get even ground?” 

And, because it was the truth (that Altair needed and wanted), “I don’t know.” And Malik’s laugh was as terrible as his crying had been. But Altair said, “there have to be resources for this,” because Malik was nothing if not deeply interested in researching resources. The camera ended up on the floor because they ended up on the bed, leaning on one another with the laptop between them, searching for any cure for their present predicament.

\--

(2016)

The last photograph he took was his round-belly in the mirror the morning his daughter was born. He didn’t know, in that photograph—his face careful and steady—that he was going to go into labor six-hours later and he didn’t know the sex of the baby he was going to have. He was stupid and clueless in that last photograph, one arm across his chest, about how everything was going to change (oh so quickly). 

But he thought, in retrospect, that he was _calm_ and he was _steady_ and he was _sure_ in that photograph, and after everything, it was as much a victory as he could hope for.

\--

(2015)

“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Altair said. The camera was sitting on the cast iron table on the patio of a bistro. His Mother was perfectly framed in the screen, running her hand across the drape of her hijab to be sure she was modest enough to be caught on camera. “I know that you had reservations about this meeting.”

Mother didn’t look at him, but at her hands, or the camera. 

“I just want to ask you a few questions. I’m making a movie—”

“Yes,” she interrupted, “I understand. You explained very thoroughly in your e-mail. I agreed to come here and answer what I could answer.” She kept looking at her fingertips, and the silver of the camera pointed at her and not at him. “I’m ready,” seemed like the farthest from the truth.

“Before you knew,” he said, “about me, about why Malik had married me. How did you feel about the match?”

“I thought it was a good match. He was a very mature young man. He had been the whole of his life. I felt that he was sincere when he said that he wanted to protect you and care for you. I thought that he was capable of doing so in all the ways that mattered.” She fussed with the ends of her hijab again and then looked sideways.

“And after?”

Her eyes went pink and her cheeks spotted up red. “I was lied to, wasn’t I? A man promised me that he’d protect my daughter and he didn’t. He killed her.”

Altair was quiet, Mother clenched her jaw and scrunched up her nose like she was doing everything she could to keep from crying. A car honked in the background and cars dragged by on the street. He was working around to asking another question, to remembering what he’d even meant to ask. It was written on his phone in a revised form that Malik and him had traded back and forth. 

“Lamah let me know that you were pregnant,” Mother said. It wasn’t anything that Altair had intended for her to know. But she did look at him, _finally_ , for the first time since he’d given her back the head scarf she’d loaned him to get married in and confessed to her that he wasn’t her _daughter_ anymore. “You’re married to a man,” she said to him, “you are carrying his child. These are not things a man can do—if you are doing them, why can’t you do them as a woman?”

“Because I’m not a woman,” Altair said.

The tears in his Mother’s eyes ran over her lashes. “Why?” she asked with her voice so raw it hurt his chest. “Why aren’t you? That is what you were when you were born, that is what you were raised to be—why aren’t you?”

“I don’t know.” Because he didn’t and he’d never found that answer as to why it had happened. Malik could have recited theories to her, he could have cited studies and sources and redirected her to support groups, but it was useless against the pain in his Mother’s voice. Altair wanted to reach his hand out and touch hers but he kept still. “But I’m not, I don’t think I ever was.”

Mother cleared her throat and wiped her face with a napkin. Her tongue ran across her lips and she shook her head. “Are you happy, are you well taken care of?” she asked him. 

“Most of the time,” Altair said. “We take care of each other.”

Mother looked at him steadily, and she must have seen the face of her daughter in his because the pregnancy had made all his edges soft again, because she looked like she was going to cry again. “I have mourned my daughter,” she said to him.

“I know,” he said. “I lost both my parents.”

And the sound she made was like she’d been struck across the face. Her hand slapped the table top and jostled the camera. Whatever spiteful thing she meant to say next, she swallowed it back. “Well that seems very stupid, doesn’t it? Neither of us are dead, and here we are, crying over one another.”

“You hurt me,” Altair said. “You and Father hurt Malik.”

“We were lied to,” Mother said.

“I know you were.” There was nothing that could be done about it. Altair was not inclined to ask forgiveness for it and Mother didn’t seem like she would have given it even if he had. Rather than worry about it, he looked at his phone. There was a list of well-thought-out questions that he meant to ask, but he couldn’t make out the shape of the words and letters, “do you think you’ll ever forgive him?”

Mother was calm, again, when she said, “maybe, if I thought he had kept his promise. If he had protected my child the way he said he would.”

Altair smiled and Mother looked like she was going to cry all over again. “Malik has done everything he promised you he would do.” And because it felt something like hope, he said, “can I send you another e-mail, maybe?”

“Yes,” Mother said. “Yes, you could. Could I,” and she stopped again, “could you please let me know when my grandchild is born? Could I have a picture?”

Altair nodded. “Yeah,” he promised. “Yes.”

\--

(2010)

The background of Malik’s phone, for four years, had been a picture he took of Altair at a job fair. They were swapping clothes back and forth then, Altair wearing suit jackets not tailored to his body. He looked like a kid wearing his father’s clothes, but he was grinning (cocky and self-assured) into the lens of Malik’s camera phone. There was no telling what about that picture—grainy resolution, poor lighting, lack of context—that Malik liked so much he carried it over three phones.

But there it was, Altair looking smug-as-ever, wearing a suit jacket too big for his shoulders with his perfectly knotted tie, standing between two tables at a job fair. 

\--

(2016)

It was December when Jaida took her first steps. Her chubby hand hanging onto the coffee table (the edges and corners covered with durable child-proofing) as the other one reached out toward Malik. He was wearing his day-off shirt (wrinkled as hell) with the cat lounging in his lap and his hands were outstretched toward her. His fingers were coiling inward as he said, “are you going to walk over here? Come on, Jaida.”

She turned her head to look up at Altair, holding the camera. She made a noise that had come to be known as her ‘should I’ sound, the very noise she made before she dumped an entire bowl of ravioli on the floor, the one she made before she jumped off the couch, the one she made when Altair dropped her off at Lamah’s house for the day. 

It was the noise she made at him when they were all alone, when she was figuring out how to crawl and he was sitting on the floor working through his mixed emotions about how slowly his body was getting back to normal. It was the noise she made leaning against the couch at nine months, eying him like she was uncertain about him as he was about life. 

“Go on,” Altair said, “you can do it.”

Jaida looked back at Malik and screwed up her lip. She lifted her hand off the coffee table and took a step. It wavered and her whole body rocked back-and-forth again before she suddenly lurched forward all but jumping three-four-five more steps before she was safe in Malik’s hands. He cheered and Altair was shouting approval behind the camera. 

Jaida wriggled around to put her back to Malik’s chest and got her feet under her again. She looked up at him (at the camera) and held her hand out toward him. She made that sound, that ‘should I’. Malik was just there behind her, whispering, “go get him,” into her ear. 

And she lurched forward again, toddling on unsure feet. Her whole face was caught in concentration, six steps into the first, biggest accomplishment of her life, she smiled up at him with pure joy. And she shrieked, he way Malik had cheered and she stomped three more steps and fell into his legs. 

“You did it!” he said for her and she was wiggling with joy, sparing a second to wipe her mouth against his jeans before she turned around and ran back to Malik.


End file.
